Moroccan Geodes

 

Over the summer, we participated in a Red Letter Challenge with our church.  We read the Bible together, read aloud other stories and the kids had a lot of fun with the weekly activities and challenges.  One of the younger kids prizes one week was Moroccan geodes.  I wanted to share us cracking our geodes open.  The kids loved this and were really excited to see all the white quartz they found inside.

 

The kids with their unopened geodes!

 

To crack open our geodes, we placed them in a sock and then gently used a hammer to smash them.

 

 

 D with her open geode!

Inside one of our geodes.

Another view

If you have never done this, it is definitely a fun activity.  Geodes are fairly plain on the outside but contain beautiful crystals within - they are such great examples of not judging a book by its cover!

Science Fun with Skittles {Rainbow Experiment}

The "littles" and I had a lot of fun the other day with Skittles.  We did a very simple rainbow experiment using only Skittles and water.  Simply place the Skittles in a circle pattern on a plate, alternating colors as you wish.  Pour water all around the outside of the Skittles and watch the magic happen and rainbow form.  The whole experiment takes only a few minutes and the kids loved it!  Hope you try it yourself.

Here is our plate of Skittles!

You can see our rainbow just starting to form after we added our water.

I love the way the colors bleed into the center.

Above you can see G pointing to the colors.

This is one of my favorite pictures.

It's almost done...

It does look a bit messy at the end.  I prefer the pictures when the rainbow is halfway formed.  But it is nice that it does complete itself in the middle.

Challenge A Dissection Night

Last night B participated in her Challenge A Dissection Night!  If you know me, then you know that I love dissections.  I think they are truly fascinating and there is so much to learn.  Like A last year, B dissected a sheep's pluck which includes the heart, lungs and fully attached trachea.

Warning - dissection photos ahead so if you are squeamish prepare yourself.

Bucket of sheep plucks

B discussing the dissection with her tutor.

Answering questions

First, B and her partner dissected the trachea.

They opened it up.


Then, they used a hand pump inserted into the trachea to manually inflate the lungs.  This part is always awesome.  See the short video below.

Watching the lungs inflate

Another view

They looked at the lungs next but I don't think I have any pictures of that.

Looking at the heart.

Dissecting into the heart.

Another view

If you have never done dissections, it's a great hands-on learning experience.

Science Fair for B

Ocean Currents Science Fair Project

I'm so proud of B!  She has been working diligently on her Science Fair project for Challenge A this year.  Her project is on Ocean Currents.  She participated in the ODA Stem Science Fair today and was awarded a blue ribbon!  She was a little nervous but it sounds like she presented her project well and the judges really liked it.

Setting up her project

Presenting to the judges and answering questions...

 Look at those scores and comments!

 Blue Ribbon

Dissection Night for Ch A

A has been participating in the Classical Conversations Challenge program this year.  Last week she participated in dissection night and I was able to stay and observe.  I have always enjoyed dissections and it was so fun to watch the students, especially as the night progressed.  At first, A was a bit timid with her specimens but it was awesome to see her and her partner really press in and by the end of the night their faces were so animated with excitement - I love this kind of hands on learning.  They dissected a sheep pluck and a cow eye.  Warning - dissection photos ahead so if you are squeamish prepare yourself.

A sheep pluck (contains trachea, lungs and heart)

I love that they spent some time sketching and taking notes.

Removing the heart from the pluck

A holding a sheep heart

Cutting the heart in half

Inside view

Examining the inside of the sheep heart

Comparing a sheep heart to a human heart

A piece of sheep heart (for comparison later)

Dissecting into the trachea

 Trachea dissection

They used a hand pump inserted into the trachea to manually inflate the lungs.

Cutting a lung in half

Inside view of a lung

Comparison of a piece of heart tissue vs a piece of lung tissue (the heart piece sinks and the lung piece floats)

 Dissecting a cow eye

 Cow eye with lens detached (looks like a white marble)

 Inside the cow eye

 Another view

Note - I forgot to mention that A broke her dominant arm a few weeks ago so you see her in a lovely purple cast above.  Thankfully, she can still write and play her flute!